others if they was to swear on the Bible. Not that
they didn't know the truth when they saw it, but they did love just to
let their fancy run. I'm livin' over all the things that happened that
night--livin' them over to-day, when everything's so quiet about me
here, so lonesome. I wanted to go over it all, bit by bit, and work it
out in my head, just as you and I used to do the puzzle games we played
in the sands. And maybe, when you're a long way off from things you once
lived, you can see them and understand them better. Out here, where it's
so lonely, and yet so good a place to live in, I seem to get the hang o'
the world better, and why some things are, and other things aren't; and
I thought it would pull at my heart to sit down and write you a long
letter, goin' over the whole business again; but it doesn't. I suppose
I feel as a judge does when he goes over a lot of evidence, and sums it
all up for the jury. I don't seem prejudiced one way or another. But I'm
not sure that I've got all the evidence to make me ken everything; and
that's what made me bitter wild the last time that I saw you. Maybe you
hadn't anything to tell me, and maybe you had, and maybe, if you ever
write to me out here, you'll tell me if there's anything I don't know
about them days.

"Well, I'll go back now to what happened when Faddo was speakin' at my
uncle's bar. Lancy Doane was standin' behind the settle, leanin' his
arms on it, and smokin' his pipe quiet. He waited patient till Faddo
had done, then he comes round the settle, puts his pipe up in the rack
between the rafters, and steps in front of Faddo. If ever the devil was
in a man's face, it looked out of Lancy Doane's that minute. Faddo had
touched him on the raw when he fetched out that about Tom Doane. All of
a sudden Lancy swings, and looks at the clock.

"'It's half-past ten, Jim Faddo,' said he, 'and aw've got an hour an' a
half to deal wi' you as a Lincolnshire lad. At twelve o'clock aw'm the
Gover'ment's, but till then aw'm Lancy Doane, free to strike or free to
let alone; to swallow dirt or throw it; to take a lie or give it. And
now list to me; aw'm not goin' to eat dirt, and aw'm goin' to give you
the lie, and aw'm goin' to break your neck, if I swing for it to-morrow,
Jim Faddo. And here's another thing aw'll tell you. When the clock
strikes twelve, on the best horse in the country aw'll ride to
Theddlethorpe, straight for the well that's dug you know where, to
find your sm